Carbon Magnet Brought Closer to Practical Use

Tokyo, Jan. 9 (Jiji Press)--A team including Kyoto University researchers said Thursday that it has taken a major step toward the practical use of a light, low-cost and high-performance carbon magnet not requiring rare earth minerals.

High-performance magnets are used in various products such as electric vehicles, smartphones and medical devices.

Among such magnets, those based on neodymium, a rare earth mineral, are widely used. But they are heavy, difficult to process and vulnerable to supply risks.

For these reasons, carbon, which is easy to obtain and is light, is attracting attention as a magnet material.

The team including Kyoto University professor Hiroshi Sakaguchi and assistant professor Takahiro Kojima chose to use graphene nanoribbons, ribbon-like structures made of ultrathin sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a mesh pattern.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]